Review: American Idols Live!

The “American Idols Live! Tour 2009” features nine vocalists not named Adam Lambert and one that is.

The latter is the person who matters; at least that’s what Bay Area “Idol” watchers have told me repeatedly over the last few months. Of course, some of those same people said that past winners Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard would maintain lengthy, high-profile careers in the music industry. I’ll be sure to pass those words on to Hicks and Studdard when I see them performing at some future county fair.

The thing is, however, those viewers may just be right this time around.

The one thing that was blatantly evident from watching Saturday’s “Idols” show at the Oracle Arena in Oakland _ one of three tour stops over the weekend in Northern California _ is that the 27-year-old Lambert is a bona-fide star.

No matter what a person thinks of Lambert’s overtly dramatic vocal style _ I, for one, find it more than a tad nauseating _ it’s still nearly impossible to deny his almost limitless potential. Indeed, just how the singer goes about trying to make good on all that promise should make for one of pop culture’s most fascinating storylines over the next few years.

Unfortunately, the rest of the top 10 finalists that performed on this night weren’t nearly as interesting as Lambert. That definitely included Kris Allen _ who, many have apparently forgotten by now, actually ended up besting Lambert to win the title of “American Idol” 2009. Whatever the voting public saw in this “average Joe” vocalist _ who comes across as a blander version of John Mayer, if indeed that’s even possible _ certainly didn’t translate at Oracle.

Overall, the show was a snoozer, much more boring than the 2008 version. This tour simply lacks the Vegas-style razzmatazz of earlier “Idol” treks. It was designed to be a straight-forward affair, one that shuns all the fun stuff like wild wardrobe changes, theatrical elements and thematic musical skits in favor of strictly spotlighting the vocalists’ raw talent. As it turned out, there wasn’t much worth spotlighting.

The Idols appeared in reverse order of how they finished, starting at 10th place with Michael Sarver and ending with Allen. The bottom six were pretty weak, but they did serve a purpose _ they set the bar so low that the big guns had no trouble clearing it.

The first singer to really connect with the crowd was fourth place finisher Allison Iraheta, a 17-year-old Ashlee Simpson wannabe that delivered Radio Disney-appropriate versions of such rockers as Pink’s “So What” and Heart’s “Barracuda.” She was followed by Danny Gokey, who has a nicely scratchy and soulful voice, but who also lacks any type of real presence onstage.

Next up was the man that seemingly every one in the three-quarter-full house had been waiting for: Lambert. The crowd went bonkers when the goth-rock Idol, recently featured on a cover of Rolling Stone magazine, appeared in his black leather outfit and began belting out Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

He then turned his operatic voice, so ripe for the Broadway stage, on Muse’s “Starlight” and Tears for Fears’ “Mad World,” which turned out to be the two best songs of the night. The one major misstep of the set _ and the decision can’t be blamed on Lambert _ was when Iraheta was called out for an unbelievably hokey duet of Foghat’s “Slow Ride.” Yet, he recovered nicely by ending his set with a David Bowie medley.

In direct comparison, Allen’s set felt absolutely anticlimactic as he moved through folksy pop renditions of such tunes as Kanye West’s “Heartless” and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” The show provided no clues to what might happen with the singer’s career – it still seems equally plausible that he might become the next John Mayer or that we will never hear from him again.

Far be it from me to argue with the approximately 100 million voters who decided that Allen deserved the 2009 “Idol” crown. On this night, however, he was simply one of nine performers not named Adam Lambert.